20 Reasons
by Rynn Abhorsen
Summary: At times he wonders how things ended up this way. Like how they end up sprawled in his bed, whispering quiet words to one another in the dark. There are 20 reasons, he thinks, for him to be experiencing heaven on earth. (NS)


**Pairing: **Nick/Sara (as if you should expect anything other from me)

**Rating: **T+ for some sexual references

**A/N: **This is a pretty short drabble but I'm quite fond of it. I hope you enjoy it as well.

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20 Reasons Why

At times he doesn't know how things ended up this way.

Like when she's sleeping in his arms and she moves, just a bit, mumbling some nonsense words and he believes that he knows exactly what she's trying to say.

Like when they react, similar to chemicals in a test tube, and he pants out that he loves her, burying his face in the crook of her shoulder, pressing a kiss to the fluttering pulse as he lets their bodies say the same.

Like when she's sitting at home, at the kitchen table when he gets back from swing shift and she's got breakfast, pancakes, his favorite. And he knows that she hates cooking, which makes it even more special.

Like when at work, he tells her to stop flirting with him and she doesn't even deny that she is.

Like when Grissom turned her down and she showed up at his door, drenched in rain and shivering, like a butterfly drowning in air.

Like when she kissed him for the first time, against the side of her Denali. And he remembers how soft her kiss was, how electric. And he remembers that he leaned in farther, trying to deepen it, but she pulled away, ducked under his arm, and hopped into her car. He remembers how sexy he found that.

And yet sometimes he still wonders.

Like when Warrick threatened to beat him with a bottle of luminol if he didn't get his head out of his ass and make a move.

Like when they made love for the first time in her bed and he swallowed her cries into his mouth in an effort not to wake the neighbors.

Like when he found out it didn't matter anyway, because when you love someone you want the whole world to know, even if they find out through hearing the woman you love cry out your name.

Like when they work together at a crime scene and he doesn't even have to speak because he realizes that she knows what he's thinking. And when the stale air that radiates even after the body's been removed makes his eyes sting, she raises her long, slender fingers to brush away the tears.

Like when she bends over him in the lab to look at evidence and he feels her breasts pressing against his back and it's all he can do not to turn around and hold her until he can't anymore.

Like when he wakes up an extra fifteen minutes early just so he can have time to watch her sleep.

Like when he realizes that she does the same thing.

Like when she tells him that she dreams about him on the nights that he can't stay with her. And he doesn't even have to tell her that he dreams about her, too. And his apartment, only a few blocks away, could be on a whole different continent for all he cares, because from his bed he can't reach out and touch her.

Like when she kisses him at work, in the locker room or in the lounge, and he doesn't have to wash the lipstick off because she doesn't wear any.

Like when he saw the sun tattoo on her foot about a year after she arrived and she told him, flirtatiously at the time and without consequence, that if he played his cards right he might just find the other two.

Like when he did.

Like when she shows him the scar that Adam Trent's makeshift knife had left on her throat, a thin jagged scrape that makes his fists tighten just to look at it because he wasn't there to save her. And he traces that scar with his fingertips, promising her and promising himself that he won't let anything mar the skin he loves so much again.

Like when he reveals to her his scars, the ones that can't be shown just by divesting oneself of clothing. And he tells her the story, beginning to end, begging her to shoulder some of the weight because he believes that she's strong enough. And she whispers to him, on the nights that he forgets himself and has nightmares, that it will all be all right. And she imprints her lips upon his skin, and for some reason he believes her.

Like when he realizes that it doesn't matter how things got to be the way that they are, because he, Nick Stokes, is with Sara Sidle, and there is nothing in this world that can ever make that less than heaven.

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**A/N:** Reviews, chocolate, and Nick/Sara stories bring joy into my life. 


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